Rolled my Superhawk from the garage, which was ~39 degrees F. at the time (early morning) and outside into the sun, which was ~62 degree F. weather. Parked the bike and went indoors for ten minutes. Came back outside and noticed something wrong with the gauges. Looked closer and saw that every plastic lens has shattered! Looks like each lens shattered into a few thousand pieces, but yet still retained thier convex shape. I'm assuming the change of temperature had something to do with this, however, isn't this why plastic was used in the first place? Just sucks to go from crystal clear gauges to ones you can barely make out.

Has this happened to anyone else?

Maybe it's time for the Veypor gauges now

 

Most odd - have you any pics? Seem to recall old bikes having that 'shattered' effect - maybe the plastic degrades over time and yours just got triggered into retirement.

Do you have a clear screen? Heard that a smoked screen protects direct effects of sunlight lensing onto clocks.

 

39-62 is NOT a big temp change. I have rolled from 18 ambient into a 66 heated garage a million times. That no way shouldve happend. You sure no one smacked em?

 

No, it's not, but if the windscreen was magnifying the sun it could be 39-262°!

 

Oh, the sun. No sun in my garage. But still, Greg, have you ever heard of such an event? Highly irregular. Maybe some ultrasonic sound cracked it.

 

Oh, I agree it's irregular, but our bikes are getting older, and the older they get, the more crap like this will happen.

 

Yeah, see thats what my doctor keeps saying about my body but I refuse to listen. I'll keep up maintinence on the hawk and keep up p90x and keep cheating ageing.

Good excuse to upgrade the dash to a cbr

 

Aren't they Lexan? That doesn't happen to Lexan. Plexiglass or acrylics, yes, but not Lexan.

That goes for smacking it too, not just temperature cycles... But who knows? Could be age takes it's toll.

 

I figured out how to post pictures with my iPad, so now I can finally show what happened. You can't see the lenses very well with the white gauge faces, but they look the same as the lens over the MPH gauge. Even the temp gauge is shattered. All happened at the same time.

 

That looks like they first had some chemical on them that etched them. Even if one failed, seems unlikely they would all 3 fail the same way without the same thing sprayed on all 3. I have seen that before (not like this but similar).

I dont see how the same exact temp couldve befallen all 3 simultaneously. But still that is wierd.

 

Chemical? They were crystal clear before they shattered. What kind of chemical have you seen put on gauge lenses? Or was it applied by accident?

The whole temperature thing was just the first idea that ran through my head that might have caused it. It could have been anything I guess.

What's odd, is that the shattering looks like it starts at the bottom of each lens, then fans out as it gets to the top of the gauge.

After taking the gauges apart, the shattered lenses look like they can be busted out and new lexan installed. If I go that route, I'll have to figure out a way to make them convex, so I don't get blinded by the sun. I'll have to look into a plastic coating or film to keep the face of the lexan from scratching. I wonder if the lexan would yellow from UV rays?

 

No, Lexan doesn't yellow. It's a polycarbonate, not acrylic.

But looking at those pics, they do look like stress cracks from heat. I used to fabricate signs from many plastics, and if you heated the edge to polish it with a flame, that's what you'd get. Which is why we polished with sandpaper and rouges rather than heat.

 

Yeah by accident. Like brake cleaner or some other really harsh chemical that hazed/etched them.,